West Ham United are to meet Salomon Kalou's representatives in London this week in the hope they can persuade the former Chelsea forward to move to Upton Park after agreeing a fee of €3.5m (£2.7m) with his French club, Lille.

Kalou moved to France in the wake of Chelsea's Champions League success in 2012 under the Bosman ruling and is contracted until 2016. The Ivory Coast forward is settled at Lille and has already rejected prospective moves to West Bromwich Albion and the Turkish club Trabzonspor this summer, but the club have accepted West Ham's offer. The Lille manager, René Girard, hopes to secure a defender and a replacement forward for the fee that would be obtained by selling the 27-year-old.

The player will still need some persuasion to move and his wage demands could yet prove problematic in negotiations with West Ham, where Sam Allardyce hopes to pair the player with the club's record signing, Andy Carroll. Their attempts to secure the Colombian forward Duván Zapata from Estudiantes earlier this summer had to be abandoned after it became clear the 22-year-old would not secure a work permit.